It might have everything to do with the relationships between mothers and their infant sons.

As babies, we rely entirely on our parents to keep us alive. But we're not just blank slates that don't think until we get older. We're present the entire time. We may not remember, but we should consider how we would've reacted at the age we are now.

Consider how you would've thought about your mother. You needed her to live. For you, her ability to meet all of your needs was the difference between life and death. What happened the first time she took a little longer to get to you? You feared for your life, as you should have. And you started to feel angry. After all, you value your life more than anything your mom was doing at the time. And if she loved you, she would too, right?

Well, that's not the reality. Mom has to meet her own needs too or she won't have the energy to meet yours. You might die, as babies are notoriously difficult to keep alive. And if you do, mom can have another one just like you. There might be justice, but none of it is going to bring you back from the dead. You're a baby, you want to live, and you're too weak to keep yourself alive. You're reliant on an imperfect person and there's nothing you can do about it.

What do you do? What's referred to as splitting. You literally saw your mother as two different people. The perfect woman that would always be there to meet your needs, the madonna. And the woman that was too busy to pay you any attention, the whore.

Little girls feel this way too, but as they get older can identify with their mothers. They eventually understand that they can play with their dollies and still love their parents at the same time. They see their mothers doing other things and don't feel threatened. Little boys never get this opportunity. They carry the anger of that primal wound with them, never having the language to express the need for justice after having been slighted. If anything, as they spend more time with their mothers and other women, those slights keep piling up all the way to adulthood.

Their solution? A woman with no needs of her own. One that has nothing else distracting her from meeting his needs above all else. This, if course, leads to the abusive, controlling relationships oftentimes perpetuated by men.

This, I believe, is the basis for men feeling like attention and love are the same thing. It's why men inherently believe women are liars. It's why some men are so enraged by women that choose not to give them the time of day. It's not just about getting laid. Rejection from women only reminds him of the days when a woman's attention was the difference between life and death and couldn't do anything about it.

TL;DR Men never get over being babies reliant on an imperfect mother to live. This is what causes the madonna/whore complex wherein women are either good for meeting his needs or are bad for not meeting his needs.